In early 2017, I asked CIOs and the IT industry to consider this question: Is the Call Center Era Over? In that year-old article I predicted big shifts away from the old call center models and toward a highly tech-driven contact center model. In the tradition of age-old call center best practices, I am issuing a report card on my own predictions and giving myself a 90% accuracy rate. What did I get right? Where did I come up short?

Without a doubt, the pendulum of service is swinging hard and fast toward sleek, streamlined, tech centric contact centers. It’s the service model of choice. However, a year after I wrote the article, the embrace of AI and chatbots still remains unchartered territory for a substantial segment of the call center industry as businesses work to find the right balance between customized customer care and digital efficiency. As 2018 begins, we revisit the rapidly transforming call center to look at what progress has been made, what’s ahead and how much longer the call center of old can endure in the age of all-out automation.

Why do business leaders focus so intently on millennials, that ubiquitous generation of workers who right now are between 22 and 40 years old? Their incredible buying power may be one reason, but their labor force strength certainly is another. Since 2015, millennials have comprised the largest segment of the U.S. workforce, which, according to Pew Research, means that “more than one-in-three American workers is a millennial.” With that reach and size, millennials are rapidly redefining workplaces in the U.S. and around the globe. For those of us in the IT sector, where change is the norm, this growing millennial force could be a challenge or an opportunity. Which is it?

Any CIO today who agrees even somewhat with the adage “the customer is king” knows that CX (customer experience) has never offered more possibilities or more complexities. This recent Washington Post profile of Walmart’s forays into virtual reality-driven shopping and customer engagement show just how much businesses are contorting and rethinking their models to keep today’s customers engaged and spending. As Walmart fights for leadership of the digital future of retail and customer engagement against formidable competitors like Amazon and Alibaba, CIOs across every industry need to consider who and what they are up against.

Whether in life or in business, sometimes we still get it all wrong even when trying our hardest. Recently I ran into a pioneering tech company that was getting AI wrong in a way that was both comical and a little alarming. To demonstrate their grasp of AI technology, they had a robot working the entrance to an event. The robot’s job was to make sure guests registered before entering. What did the robot do if you hadn’t registered? It blocked your path like an NBA power forward trying to keep LeBron James from driving to the hoop. It was irritating, a bit aggressive, and made me—a speaker who did not have to register—late. It’s hard to appreciate a next-gen AI wonder when it’s keeping you from doing your job.

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AnalyticsCMO RoleIT LeadershipIDG Contributor Network: What is the tech industry’s responsibility to talent in the age of automation?Thu, 03 Aug 2017 10:00:00 -0700Anna FrazzettoAnna Frazzetto

The struggle to find and hire skilled tech professionals is holding at fever pitch for most businesses today. Around the world I have seen employers take inventive and sometimes aggressive approaches to finding the data, UX, cloud, security, Web, mobile and AI experts their busy IT organizations need. Most recently, a client of mine hosted a global hackathon focused on new product and service development. While the technologists who came to the event focused on the issues and innovation at hand, recruiters and hiring managers were also out in force looking to identify candidates in the unusually target-rich environment.

What struck me as interesting is how many of these talented tech pros can and do work on technologies that are beginning to reduce and eliminate tech jobs. Take for example, cloud developers and solution experts. The level of automation being built into cloud environments today means that fewer and fewer tech experts will be needed to build and manage cloud systems. A recent study by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, “The Future of Employment,” found that “47% of workers in America have jobs at high risk of potential automation.”

If there is one thing the last year has shown me in my global travels and work, it’s this: now is the time for CDOs to determine their grand vision for artificial intelligence and machine learning and how it will shape their business strategy. Why? Because the robots are not coming. Right now, businesses are already leveraging the cognitive abilities of self-learning and self-correcting, software-driven robots. Their arrival is not a few years or months down the road. They are already in the workplace and in our lives. For businesses to compete, now is the critical moment to both explore how AI and machine learning can take their business to the next digital level and build a plan of action.

The tech industry has done a lot of soul- and talent-searching in recent years to try and improve upon its dismal track record of hiring and promoting women.

According to a McKinsey & Co. study, “only 37% of workers in entry-level positions are female... and women make up only 19% of tech senior vice presidents and 15% of CEOs.” Findings like those have many of the male-dominated boards and leadership teams at tech companies asking, “What should we do?”

My answer? Let’s ask the women of the tech world. Clearly, women CIOs, CTOs and chief digital officers (CDO) who have made it to the top have some valuable insight into reaching the IT industry’s highest levels as a woman. But would they each share similar insights and tips, or would their experiences and ideas vary widely? To find out, I posed this simple question to women IT leaders from around the globe:

Recent years have elevated the profile of IT leaders who have seen their roles at executive tables grow in prominence. Never before has technology — how it’s implemented, managed and engaged — mattered more to business success. The good news for IT leaders is that their businesses are benefiting in big ways from the technology knowledge and insight they bring to business strategy. The challenging news is that their technology remit continues to grow, and fast. The more the business relies on technology, the more technology there is to manage.

Since the start of 2017, I have been talking to IT leaders about how they are balancing their expanding roles and what is keeping them up at night. Across the board, they are enjoying having more input into business strategy. However, they are also worried about staying ahead of ever-evolving technology as well as business and customer needs. Here are the concerns keeping today’s senior-most IT leaders up at night.

The heyday of the big and bustling call center is coming to an end. While customer inquiries, outreach and grievances never go away, the ways in which they are managed are changing quickly. The majority of B2C interactions will soon be person-to-machine rather than person-to-person due to the rapid rise of RPA (robotic process automation) and artificial intelligence (A.I.).

Does that mean mega call centers, which once staffed hundreds and sometimes thousands of people, will now look like data centers, where racks of hardware hum with the work of A.I.-infused software? Will the person-to-person work of call centers become a thing of the past? Clearly big transformations are underway, which makes this the right time to look at what’s ahead and why.

Just as with any new presidential administration, new chief digital officers have to pack a lot of work into the first 100 days on the job. My first post in this two-part series focused on one key priority for CDOs to focus on in those early weeks — people. In this second half of the series, we are going to expand the executive agenda and explore the importance of evaluating processes and technology in the CDO’s early foundation-building days.

Processes: Are they fueling or foiling innovation?

Where does a CDO, whose work extends across so many areas of the business (IT, marketing, sales, product/service development, delivery, customer support, etc.) have opportunities to influence process improvement in the first 100 days? Clearly, the CDO cannot tackle process optimization across all those groups. That would take more than 10,000 hours on the job. But what about the touch points between businesses groups where digital collaboration and information-sharing needs to occur?

The “first 100 days” may be a famed transition period for new U.S. presidents, but isn’t it also a valid time frame for almost any senior leader to lay the groundwork for success? In the business world, we often talk about probationary periods for new employees lasting for the first 90 to 180 days. Their competence and effectiveness are examined at the end of that period of time just as presidential administrations are scrutinized intensely for their work and progress during their first 100 days in office.

As I consider both the opportunities and the challenges today’s chief digital officers (CDO) have to contend with, including the hopes and ambitions of entire businesses set on digital transformation, I believe the first 100 days are also important in laying the groundwork to lead digital transformation efforts. While the entire world may not be watching, CDOs today are in the executive hot seat and are carrying heavy expectations. How can today’s CDOs meet the soaring aspirations of employees, fellow executives, customers, investors and the marketplace — all looking to digital to drive better operations, more customers, greater efficiency, higher profits, more powerful innovation, smarter data and more? By turning those first 100 days into a time to ensure that these three essential areas are aligned: People, processes and technology.

In recent months, we’ve explored how digital transformation within businesses has sparked parallel transformations in C-suites across the globe. The rise of CDOs (chief digital officers) has created big change at the top of many organizations as they work to address the digital demands hitting all levels of business today. Pick a department — finance, customer service, IT, marketing, HR, R&D — and you are very likely to see one or more mobile, social, cloud and data initiatives at work. While business leaders at the top are looking ahead and asking “What’s next for digital?” and “How can we prepare?” many teams on the ground are working through “What’s now?” They are still adapting to the many ways digital is reshaping how they collaborate, engage and deliver.

Remember when the C-suite was a simple, uncrowded place? There was a CEO with business strategy, growth and vision responsibility, and a CFO who oversaw the financial side of the business. Rounding it out, there was (sometimes) a COO who managed operations. And that was often it — a small trio of leaders who shared the job of driving the business forward. Today’s packed C-suites look quite different.

It’s hard to keep track of all the C’s you might encounter in a C-suite today. From chief information and chief technology officers to chief marketing, chief digital, chief data, chief strategy, chief communications, chief quality and chief sustainability officers, there are few limits on what you might find in the C-suite today.

In the race to “go digital,” many global corporations and large enterprises are expanding their C-suites. In recent posts, I’ve shared how the addition of CDOs (chief digital officers) and CIOs (chief innovation officers) have some executive teams bulging with new digital leaders -- and new digital initiatives. But what’s a midmarket or small business to do? Not every company can add sought-after and costly C-level talent to architect and oversee digital transformation.

Rather than focus on one or two senior leadership roles, midmarket and smaller companies (in fact businesses of all sizes) can begin their own digital transformations with this important inquiry: How is our digital health and what can we do to improve it? Just as a doctor needs to treat the whole person rather than one ailing body part, maintaining digital health means assessing and aligning the entire business behind digital transformation.

Digital is the way of the marketplace today. One look at our hyper-connected, data-driven ways of working, and it’s clear that digital is also the way of the future. In the midst of rewiring business models, mindsets and mechanisms for the digital age, it’s important to ask about leadership. Who has the skills and experience to take on the challenging job of digital transformation today and tomorrow? Who from across the senior leadership ranks is best equipped to be CEO? Will it be COOs or CFOs? CMOs or CIOs?

Because digital technologies touch all areas of the business, the best candidates for CEO roles will have experience associated with all of the major C-level roles—operational (COO), financial (CFO), marketing, sales, customer engagement (CMO) and information technology (CIO and CTO). Few senior executives could claim substantial experience in all of those areas until the recent emergence of the CDO (Chief Digital Officer) role. CDOs, tasked with leading and delivering digital transformation across all areas of the business, are gaining broad and varied business experience and skills. That diverse experience is one reason that leading candidates for the CEO roles of tomorrow may well be the CDOs (Chief Digital Officers) of today. Let’s look at some of the other reasons why the pathway to CEO seems fairly unencumbered for effective, strategic CDOs.